Honesty is harder than we think

John 10:10- The thief comes to steal kill and to destroy, but I (Jesus) came to give you LIFE, and to give you life ABUNDANTLY.

I've started a book entitled "The Emotionally Healthy Woman" by Geri Scazzero, and only a few chapters in I've had a lot of reflection. She goes through the '8 Different things we have to quit to change your life.'

One of the first things to quit is lying. I'm a pastor's wife, I don't lie. I thought. Let me tell you, reading the book through her lens and my own has been so helpful. She writes as a mother of 4 and the wife to a pastor of a start up church.

A few of the concepts from the first 'quit' I'm still trying to resolve in my head and my heart. We have to quit lying to ourselves and to society. 'I'm fine.' 'I'm great.' 'Sure, I can do that too.' When inside your secretly dying.

Can I be honest...? This was one of the hardest winter's I've walked. I mean, I love the snow, but this was a LOONG winter of being stuck inside. I feel like I perfected the 'I'm fine' when really on the inside I was so desperate to have someone sit and listen. To give me freedom to cry. To grieve. To Process. To be safe. To still feel wanted after I was vulnerable. No one told me I couldn't do those things, but I lived in the bubble of self made expectations, so I put myself in my own jail. I had big, real, heavy things pressing on my mind, but I just lied saying I was fine and chose to put that smile back on.

I assumed they wanted me to be the one asking the questions, giving the encouragement, and creating the cathartic space for others. I don't need much, I think, but I figured no one had room to hear it. Lies. I did have people who listened, who loved, and were available.

Sickness. Grief. Loss. Questions. Loneliness. Yet smiles. Often sincere, but sometimes just part of the game.

Self doubt. Am I doing enough? Are my kids nice enough? Listen well enough? Representing well enough? Is my house nice enough? Big enough? Too big? Clean enough? Does my laundry represent my success as a homemaker? Can I let my friends see it messy? See me messy? Still want me? Are we making enough of a difference as a family? As friends? Are we personally on mission? Are we exerting all of this energy for anything?
Am I still called to play the game of life I've been dealt? Am I even of any merit? Do people look at me and think I'm a joke? Surely they all see how pathetic I really am.

Lies. Real honest to goodness lies.

Will some people disagree with how we chose to do life? You betcha. Does my value come from that? I'm working on relearning it doesn't. I don't want to live in a web of falsities.

...So...
"The thief comes to steal kill and destory..."
Isolation is one of the best breeding grounds for this in my opinion. I'm the only one struggling. They don't know my story, the aches and the grief. This is false. These are what I like to call the whispers of the enemy. I want the booming voice of the Redeemer speaking TRUTH in my my heart. 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18,23-24 
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances;for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

'The one who calls you is FAITHFUL, and he WILL DO IT'. He will equip me. He will motivate me. He will give me purpose. He will take my broken pieces and make them beautiful.

He made me to love, to nurture, to tend to, to encourage, to hope, to laugh, to live abundantly, to seek joy. My name Emily means Industrious One. My middle name is joy, which means what it is (obviously ;) ) But I take that as a call to be industrious in how I create joy.

I love to create things. To try new things. To tend to new life. I was a labor and delivery nurse before I was a stay at home mom. I love babies of most any kind, human or mammal. I was made to show love. I need to embrace the value of this calling more than ever.

In the last 6+ months we've acquired a home with more rooms, a kitten, 3 goats and 5 chickens. I hope to fill it even more. I was called to live abundantly. Soon we'll welcome our third biological child and also welcome a long term foster care placement. We'll go from 2 kids to 4 in a very short time.
Abundantly full. Abundantly crazy. Abundantly grateful.

As I engage the coming months and the new life and hope all around, I want to receive the life all around us that is being placed in our journey. I can't continue living under the bondage of a heavy heart. So we rejoice. We hope. We PRAY A LOT. We stick to the life God has given us and asked us to walk.

So friends, I encourage you too, to acknowledge what lies you're allowing yourself to live under.  Come out to the marvelous light of hope. Don't say yes to too much, when simpler is better. Don't stay simple when you've been called to complex. Dance the dance asked of you.

Find your freedom. Embrace who Jesus is asking you to be. Run with perseverance.  Run with hope. Seek out the abundant life Jesus has to those who are willing to engage it. Pray crazy prayers and live in great expectation.

Ephesians 3:20- 21 
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.